Robert Hough was paid $3075 by the LNP to provide about 50 files on different MPs, ministers and the Premier about their private lives, strengths and weaknesses.

Hints at his frustration with the party, of which he had been a lifelong member, began to show last year when, as federal candidate for Moncrieff against Steve Ciobo, he lashed out at the ALP and accused them of starving the Gold Coast of campaign resources.

"When you've got people saying to you 'I won't vote for you, you backstabbing bastard', you know it's not going well," he said on election night, citing voter anger at the sacking of Kevin Rudd.

Related Content

"In the next week there will be a lot of soul searching going on in the Labor party. We had a lack of resources at polling booths which wasn't good enough. Steven Ciobo had about 320 volunteers whereas I had 50 to 60."

During his federal election campaign, Mr Hough told ABC radio the politician he admired the most was Barack Obama because of his "positive campaign", which is worlds away from the dirt units both the ALP and LNP have accused the other of operating.

Advertisement

When asked on the same program what "irked" him about politicians, he replied "there's an element of ego you gotta deal with, sometimes that's difficult".

Mr Hough listed his previous jobs as an union organiser, kitchen hand, policy advisor to two state government ministers, electorate officer in Mount Isa, helping set up a restaurant in Broadbeach on the Gold Coast, human resources manager as well as jobs at the Gold Coast City Council and Jupiters Casino.

Mr Hough grew up in the New South Wales union and Labor movement and worked within Queensland Labor as part of the AWU Right Faction.

This is not the first scandal that he has been embroiled in after being investigated by the Crime and Misconduct Commission over the "gravy train" affair.

He was working as a policy adviser to then Transport Minister John Mickel at the time and organised a privately catered Citytrain for a group of unelected Labor Party members, complete with 16 public servants as guides, for a tour of infrastructure projects around Brisbane.

The trip came at a cost of $3000 with a $200 cafe lunch that would have been paid for by the taxpayer until it was exposed in the media and the ALP paid the bill.

The CMC described his actions as 'a gross error in judgment' but found no evidence of misconduct.

Mr Hough's punishment at the time was a $1628 annual pay cut.

He was then moved out to Mount Isa to work as an electorate officer for Labor MP Betty Kiernan. He made a return to Brisbane and worked in Main Roads minister Craig Wallace's office which he left last year under "strained" circumstances.

He first ran for parliament in 2003 when he was in his 20s and was preselected for the NSW seat of Port Macquarie.

At the time he was accused by the mayor of Hastings of not running a legitimate campaign.

Mayor Wayne Richards said Mr Hough was then only being used as a pawn to net more votes for the National-turned-independent, Robert Oakeshott, using preferences.